Bioelectricity Generation from Bamboo Hydrolysate by Microbial Fuel Cells Using Pseudomonas Aeruginosa PR3 for Natural Resource Conservation

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a green technology that allows recovery of electricity from wastes, thus, it can be applied in environmental conservation, natural resource preservation and bioenergy production. As an attempt to efficiently utilize the increasing amount of bamboo wastes as an input for energy production, this study investigated the electricity generation efficiency of a dual-chamber MFC in sugar conversion into electricity using Pseudomonas aeruginosa PR3 and hydrolysates from the acid pretreatment of Bambusa stenostachya Hack.. MFCs were inoculated with PR3, acclimated with glucose then operated with bamboo hydrolysates containing different total reducing sugars as the anolytes. Total sugar consumption of the MFCs for electricity conversion varied from 76.25 to 96.30% after 48 hours of operation in bamboo hydrolysates. Results from electrochemical analysis showed that MFC with 9.0 g/L sugars from bamboo hydrolysates had better electricity production, with the maximum open-circuit voltage of 620 mV, current density of 1092.08 mA/m2 and power density of 91.16 mW/m2. Microbial communities in these MFCs could effectively recover electricity from up to 9.0 g/L reducing sugars in bamboo hydrolysates, preliminarily illustrating the applicability of the MFC technology in natural resource conservation as a way to produce alternative energy sources from the treatment of bamboo-processing wastes.